Andrew Server
aserver@uwyo.edu
I would like to start off this column by acknowledging that the University of Wyoming is, in relation to other college campuses, only rather moderately liberal. We might attribute that to being the only four-year institution in a reliably republican state. Here you see no “free speech zones” or radical professors dressing up as Dick Cheney in hunter camouflage while pantomiming holding a firearm in class for Halloween (this really happened at UNL). One only has to search the College Republican National Committee (CRNC)-inspired #MyLiberalCampus to see that it is indisputable that other campuses can be far more radically liberal than the experience one has on the UW campus. With that in mind, some of the descriptions to follow do not necessarily reflect what it’s like to be a republican student on the UW campus, rather, what it is like to be a republican student on college campuses in general. In the end, what stands is this- in order to get through college as a republican and enjoy your experience, you have to be a masochist.
We hear all the time from those more liberal-minded that college is an institution to encourage discussion, critical reasoning and deep thought. Truly I think it is undeniable that this is what college ought to be. Instead we often receive one-sided “discussion” and critical reasoning all too often directed at republican beliefs. How is thought to be deep when it is made shallow by steeping it in ideology and hatred for a group that holds a particular ideology?
It is easily visible in many a lecture room to see democrat students vocalize their beliefs and have them be received in an agreeable fashion by professors. In fact, democrat students often don’t even need to vocalize their beliefs because professors oftentimes already offer vocal support for those with liberal ideologies. Republican students in college receive no such systematic affirmation of their beliefs. Sitting through lecture upon lecture hearing how republicans are crazy bigots with backward lifestyles eventually leads a republican student to enjoy the strife caused and find some kind of twisted joy in seeing just how liberal a professor or fellow student can whittle themselves down to. Facing impending one-sided dialogue, republican students can find comfort in three things: 1. That strange intrigue found in seeing how liberal individuals can become. 2. Their next College Republicans meeting. 3. Finally getting out of such a liberal institution.
Anyone reading this who knows me knows that I don’t feel uncomfortable in my pride in being a republican student, what with my republican stickers on my laptop and my aptness to discuss my republican views. As mentioned before, I recognize that this campus is more welcoming to republicans than other campuses are and for that I am grateful. It’s one of the reasons why I chose to come here for my higher education. That being said, I assure you that there are both loud and discreet adverse reactions that republicans face here. If you find yourself scoffing at this, claiming that there is not loud opposition to republicans here on campus, I encourage you to talk to so-called “Pro-Life Girl,” the president of Students for Life club on campus and bring up how she is verbally accosted nearly biweekly simply for having conservative republican principles.
On college campuses, republican students are socialized to mute ourselves and encouraged to suppress our true identities. No, often it is not vocal and abrasive encouragement. It’s encouragement through being shut down. After a while in such a system, one gets used to being the underdog and feeling outspoken. They find some twisted joy in the fact. While it might not always hold true for this campus, it remains true in general- you have to be a masochist in order to enjoy college as a conservative republican student.
